My favorite sugar cookie recipe with awesome icing recipes and good tips too!

My cousin gave me these recipes and they are really good and the icing turns out nice and glossy.

Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter (real butter, softened)
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. almond exctract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cream of tartar

Mix ingredients in mixer (or by hand if you want to work really hard).  Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.  You can freeze it too.

Roll out dough (use lots of flour) and cut out cookies. 
****Here is a great tip for you - when you cut out your cookies stick them in the freezer for 10 minutes and then bake them.  It keeps your cookies from spreading and looking out fat and bloated.  In other words, they keep their shape better.
Bake at 350 for 9 minutes.

Tips:  Use cookie cutters that are about the size of your palm.  Use 2 - 1/4 inch dowel rods so your dough is even (see picture above).


Here are the icing recipes - there are two of them:

Cookie Icing

2 lbs. powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons of light corn syrup
2 teaspoons of vanilla
water (add just a little at a time until it is pourable)

- you can dip your cookies in this and scrap sides off and allow to harden (sprinkle with spinkles and such now) or you can use this as your "flood icing" after it is outlined with the Royal icing (recipe follows).

Royal Icing

2 lbs. powdered sugar
6 Tablespoons of meringue powder (find it at JoAnn's, Michael's or Hobby Lobby in the cake stuff)
water (slowly add) until its thick but pourable

Beat with a whisk or your mixture very fast for 5-10 minutes.

When you add the color - make sure you get really good food coloring to make really bright colors.  I used Wilton brand I believe.

I started to outline mine but had some younger helpers who wanted to go a little faster.  Again you can outline with royal icing and flood it using a toothpick with the other icing.

Here is the cookie icing that I just dipped (no outline) and yes it is the state of Missouri for you geography buffs.

Here is finished cookies (they are so gone by the way).

This is when I did it a few years ago with my cousins.

If you want to get really fancy you can buy these bags and labels from an office supply store and personalize them and print the labels out to give out the cookies in.

 Thank you to my cousin who gave me this recipe.  She is an awesome cake decorator too!

Pioneer Woman has a great tutorial but I found the bottles they used for the royal icing very tedious to work with and to clean!